Research

Design Treatments for Cancer Care

03/08/2012

At the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, physicians and scientists are encouraged
to collaborate, with the idea that the marriage of minds will drive effective
strategies to prevent, control – and ultimately cure – cancer in the future.

Last fall that collaborative
ethos manifested itself in a partnership between MSKCC doctors, nurses, facilities staff and
administrators and a trio of new RISD Architecture graduates, guided by faculty
mentors. The group focused on two key design questions related to patient care:
What should the clinic room of the future do? And what is the best design for a post-operative recovery floor where
outpatients and their family members can rest after surgery?

In a guided
internship designed by architect and former adjunct faculty member Aki Ishida and Professor Lynnette Widder, Warren Aftahi MArch 11, Catharine
Rha MArch 11 and Taylor Wozniak
BArch 11 interned at MSKCC’s Innovation Lab, attempting to answer those
questions. MSKCC selected the three interns from a group of recent Architecture
graduates recommended by the department for their talent, aptitude and interest
in exploring solutions to healthcare needs.

In a departure from the typical
summer internship format, Aftahi, Rha and Wozniak worked closely with MSKCC
staff to understand the needs of patients but turned to Ishida and Widder for external
design support. As their primary advisor, Ishida emphasized the importance of
having the greatest possible level of involvement with the Center’s staff and
patients in order to produce the best, most relevant work.

Ishida ensured
that the interns “engaged highly accomplished doctors and nurses from the start
by shadowing them during their work day and sitting in the exam rooms and the
recovery floors, observing how they interact with patients,” she says. “Having the ability to receive feedback more
readily within MSKCC’s own territory and being able to make appointments with
the doctors and nurses to observe them as questions arose during the design process
allowed for a more seamless, effective collaboration.”

Prescription for natural lightDuring the eight-week internship, Aftahi, Rha
and Wozniak worked on how to combine
the functions of the existing exam and consultation rooms within 120 square
feet, and how to create post-surgery
outpatient recovery rooms with visual and acoustic privacy that are both equipped
to treat patients in the acute recovery phase and comfortable for visiting
family members.

“One of the first
observations the interns made was that the relationship to natural light in the
facility seemed productive to study,” Widder notes. So she and Ishida involved other RISD alumni,
notably well-known architectural glass and lighting expert James Carpenter
72 IL and his partner Davidson Norris of Carpenter Norris Consulting, who presented on “Light and
Wellbeing” – the effect of natural light – on both mental
and physical health and helped the interns understand how to use the properties
of natural light in architectural contexts.

“Much of their work centered
around trying to create better access to natural light, especially for the
short-stay recovery rooms,” Widder explains. “This meant looking at layouts in
which either all individual rooms were naturally lit or the naturally lit
spaces were allocated to communal purposes such as walking, sitting or meeting with
family members. It also meant that the interns’ work included strategies for
reflecting natural light as far as possible into the depth of the spaces.”

Other guest reviewers at presentations included Lauren Crahan BArch 96 and adjunct RISD
professor John Hartmann, the co-founders
of Freecell, a design and fabrication
studio based in Brooklyn; and Alfred Zollinger BArch 90, who is an assistant professor of interior
design at Parsons the New School for Design and co-principal of Matter
Practice, an architecture and exhibition design firm.

The interns
constructed a full-scale model of the clinic room, including furniture and
lighting, which proved “to be extremely effective in testing various
configurations and receiving direct feedback from the medical staff,” Ishida
says. MSKCC also extended Rha’s and Wozniak’s internships by three weeks so that
they could further develop the design of the recovery floor and build a
full-size foamcore model of a recovery room. Both models are now being used for
ongoing discussions among the stakeholders.

“The interactive process with the RISD architect
graduates was an incredibly stimulating experience that
resulted in innovative concepts for patient/physician interactions,” notes Dr. Paul Hamlin, clinical director of the Lymphoma Outpatient Unit. “These RISD graduates fully embraced the design process and engaged all
of the health care providers in the iterative process. Ultimately, the design team created an embracing space
that will allow for a technologically modern experience while maintaining the
very important intimate and personal aspects of the physician/patient
encounter.”

Being exposed
to the views of this diverse group of talented designers and architects while
working on site at MSKCC was the perfect recipe for finding design solutions
that meet the needs of the facility’s community. “One of the most valuable
things we accomplished through this guided internship was to introduce both
young architects and the medical professionals they worked with to an
interactive design process that allowed for fruitful multidisciplinary discussions,” Ishida concludes.